Lei Cha

This is something totally foreign to me. I sort of remember Bento mentioning this before. I was told by a friend that I should try this Hakka rice especially now that they have moved from Lintas to shoplot 1 in the Taman Cantek shophouses.

Last Sat, Lily, Hub and I walked into the shop and asked for "lei cha" and this is what was displayed:



My hub immediately walked off to the next stall and ordered Kuching laksa. He looked totally disgusted and upset. I guess it insulted his meat-loving cells. Lily and I settled for a bowl each, which came like this:


Lei cha. RM4.50/US$1.40

We were half-amused and half-apprehensive. Almost half-afraid too. I thought of all the cha shao and chicken rice I could be eating. "This is crazy. It looks awful," was what went through my mind.

It wasn't so bad. In fact, it was pleasant. Imagine the taste of boiled veg, preserved radish (choy bo), dried shrimps, peanuts, fried tofu, boiled french beans with brown rice. Hardly any oil or salt. The peanuts and radish gave a lot of crunch while the saving grace was the flavor given by the dried shrimps and reserved radish. What I didn't like was the 'soup', which was milled or ground herbs ("Lei" means to mill or grind, "Cha" is tea) infused in boiling water. It tasted like a bowl of unsalted mint and basil chlorophyll. If I have to live on that, I'd have Kiera Knightly's chopsticks body too. Now that's an idea. Yi, are you reading this? This may be the mother of all diets. I intend to eat lei cha once a week. I swear it made me feel lighter and cleaner, very detoxified.

I took Ming there for lunch today. What I like about this boy is, he's like me when it comes to food. While we love meat, we also love veg. Ming can eat a whole plate of greens like Little Foot. Apprehensive at first, laughing with embarassment at the bowl placed in front of him, he was still better than his dad. He took a spoonful, then another, and gamely said, "It's quite good actually." We both skipped the soup. I saw this guy at another table pour all the soup into the bowl of rice, and I shuddered. I looked around and nearly everybody was eating lei cha even though there were two other stalls selling Kuching laksa and BBQ meat and noodles. We started a guessing game and we were pretty accurate on predicting which patron would order lei cha, and which one would go for the meat meal. The guys who won't eat lei cha are dark, pudgy sorts while the lei cha guys are fairer and more serene-looking. Could it be because they are Buddhists who come here for a vegan meal? I also noticed that most lei cha patrons are ladies and Ming said it figures because women are so into health and looks. Btw, I recommend that you have it with brown and not white rice. That's what L, who told me about this place, adviced me too and he's right. Given that the weather's been boiling, stuffy hot the past 4 days, lei cha is an excellent choice. I've always wondered why Malaysians eat hot boiling noodles in this heat.

Now the next person I want to bring to the lei cha shop is Wey. If I can make him eat it, it'll be like winning the Lotto.